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Judging is obviously a very subjective endeavour, but learning to ID faults & what makes for a good example of a style takes guidance from an experienced palate & some serious drinking over a long period of time..:) And a good..erm..memory..I think? I can't remember..

After my issues with M15 stalling, I got home today to find the US05 starter I pitched has saved the day for the bitter, the mild still hasn't got any lower but still has an active Krausen of so I'll leave it be. Thank goodness I had some of the 'Ol faithful in the fridge!

Just threw out my new auto-siphon after just 2 uses. Useless, all it did was oxygenate both batches I've used it with. That has pretty much sealed the deal for me. Conical for pressure transfer here I come.

Brewed a double batch last weekend that I'm planning on using as my first sours. Checked my Saison today that was racked onto 1kg of frozen raspberries last weekend, and noticed an infection on the surface with the fruit. Doesn't taste infected, quite nice actually, although I would use 500g next time. Can't bottle until the weekend, so I might just leave it be and see how it turns out. Hopefully just started my sour program 1 week early...

Kegged blonde ale with diaceytl problems. Added a tablespoon of sugar and left at ambient for a week, releasing pressure twice a day. Been in the fridge for a week and back up to serving pressure, can't pick up any diacetyl!

Cleaned the front of my Keg Mate Series 3 the other day, it was looking a bit sad. Throughout the night it loudly and repeatedly let me know that I must have got some water on the control panel! Thankfully once the spare parts arrived it was a 5 minute fix, also figured I may as well upgrade it to run from -4 to 28.

They sell a replacement temperature PCB for $40. From their website the first PCB's only went down to 4 (mine), the second set to about -1 and the newest can be set from -4 to 28. Not sure it would be accurate enough for fermentation, it is still just measuring fridge air temp using the fridges temp sensor?

If you give me a week or so for the current kegs to blow, I'll give it a good test. I know it goes below 4 degrees comfortably. But I can test it on a faux fermentation cycle to see if it actually does go to and from those extremes comfortably and PM you if you like.

What a difference a day makes. Hand cranked grain with my new mill yesterday, worked perfectly. Went to take the crank off and the bolt snapped, had to hammer the thing off. Setup the new motor and it worked fine, but as soon as I put grain in it only spun on the motor side. Can't get the spider coupler off to work out why because the hex head screws have stripped on day one... I give up for today, will call Keg King tomorrow.

Yeah, story of my life. Managed to get the coupling off the shaft, but will require a new one... Pretty sure there was a part missing for the coupling, looking online at other peoples setups. Hard to tell though, there were no instructions to check.

Had an APA that just kept clogging my keg dip tube, no matter how many times I took it out, cleaned it , sanitised it and returned it. Quickly returned to a slow trickle out of the tap that tasted yeasty. Found a write up by QLDKev on keg to keg transfer today, now pours beautifully and the hops shine again!

SWMBO said no to a Grainfather with my tax refund, so more tinkering with the 1V it is. If I switch around some of the ball valves and the thermowell I should be able to fit one of those Evilbay 38L pots as a malt pipe.

Grabbed a new CO2 bottle yesterday, discovered one leak at the regulator end, must have bumped it when I moved the fridge recently. Must still have a small leak at the manifold though, it dropped pressure slightly overnight. Turned the valves off to see if it's at the input or the ball valves.

Just did my first proper batch sparge, didn't have a choice as I couldn't fit all my grain and my pre boil volume into the pot. Got my post boil gravity before even starting the boil. Should see a 10% increase in efficiency, cool. Might do this more often.